Oldspeak: Yep, Humans have yet to appreciate the grave implications of global species migrations, I anticipate this will continue to be the case, until it is no longer possible to ignore them. As time passes and conditions deteriorate, more and more plants, animals, insects, birds and yes, humans, will likely continue to be displaced as vast regions of Earth on land and sea become increasingly inhospitable to life. In fact one scientist observed that “The colliding forces of human fertility, submerging coastal zones, residential retreat, and impediments to inland resettlement are a huge problem… preliminary estimates of the lands unlikely to support new waves of climate refugees due to the residues of war, exhausted natural resources, declining net primary productivity, desertification, urban sprawl, land concentration, ‘paving the planet’ with roads, and greenhouse gas storage zones offsetting permafrost melt.” Expect the constelation of implications to grow more grave.” –OSJ

(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) — A spate of new research studies has confirmed a disturbing pattern: climate disruption is confusing migratory birds, causing trees to relocate and allowing tropical diseases to spread northward. “Human society has yet to appreciate the implications of unprecedented species redistribution for life on Earth, including for human lives,” states a study, “Divergence of Species Responses to Climate Change,” published May 17, 2017, in Science Advances.

Imagine if you had to travel thousands of miles and arrive at a specific time each year, but you had no way of knowing the precise time you needed to get there. That’s what it’s like for many songbirds that migrate from Central and South America each spring to breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada. If they were to arrive too early, they wouldn’t find food and could freeze to death. If they arrive late, the best nesting sites may be taken and there will be fewer opportunities to find a mate.

For countless generations, these birds have been able to rely on seasonal signals such as the length of daylight. That hasn’t changed of course, but now, due to a rapidly changing climate, the conditions at their summer homes may not be what they’ve come to expect, according to another study published May 15 in Scientific Reports.

“We’re seeing spring-like conditions well before birds arrive,” said lead author Stephen Mayor, a postdoctoral researcher with the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, in a press release. “The growing mismatch means fewer birds are likely to survive, reproduce and return the following year.”

This groundbreaking study combined 12 years of NASA satellite imagery tracking the arrival of spring greenery, with citizen-collected science data extracted from eBird, which records more than 60 million observations a year. An online tool used by amateur and professional bird watchers, eBird is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.

“It’s powerful. Whether they know it or not, birders are helping scientists do their work, and they could end up helping birds in the process,” stated study co-author Rob Guralnick, Associate Curator of Bioinformatics at the Florida Museum.

The researchers looked at 48 species of songbirds and found that the average gap between the onset of spring and the arrival of these birds has lengthened by half a day per year, or five days per decade. Nine of these species fell further behind, losing a full day or more per year. Those struggling most were great crested flycatchers (Myiarchus crinitus), indigo buntings (Passerina cyanea), scarlet tanagers (Piranga olivacea), rose-breasted grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus), eastern wood pewees (Contopus virens), yellow-billed cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus), northern parulas (Setophaga americana), blue-winged warblers (Vermivora cyanoptera) and Townsend’s warblers (Setophaga townsendi).

“If anything could adapt to climate change, you’d think that birds that migrate thousands of miles could,” Mayor said. And that may happen, but it will take many generations, as evolution selects for earlier-arriving birds. Adding to the complexity, these scientists also found that greening is beginning earlier in eastern forests and later in western forests in the U.S.

All this is happening while forest trees themselves are moving in response to a disrupted climate. Yet another corroborating study, led by Purdue University and published May 17, 2017, in Science Advances, looked at 86 species of trees in the U.S. over three decades. Researchers found that 73 percent shifted westward and 62 percent shifted northward, including some species that moved simultaneously in both directions. Of course, the trees themselves don’t move, but over time, the highest concentration for each species has been notably shifting.

The movement has thus far been greater in the westerly direction, equaling 50 feet per decade. Northward movement was measured at 36 feet per decade. The shifts are attributed to changes in precipitation and temperature — both outcomes of climate destabilization.

Another study on vegetation migration was carried out by scientists at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UT), published May 8, 2017, in Science Daily. That research, like Purdue’s analysis, found trees in the Rocky Mountains moving northward. “One general expectation is that tree ranges will gradually move toward higher elevations as mountain habitats get hotter,” said Michael Van Nuland, the project’s lead researcher and a doctoral student in UT’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “It is easy to see the evidence with photographs that compare current and historical tree lines on mountainsides around the world. Most document that tree lines have ascended in the past century.”

In Europe, 34 percent of timber forests will be suitable only for Mediterranean vegetation by 2100, according to the Purdue University study. Looking at the redistribution of species under climate disruption, the authors found many other changes coming. “For marine, freshwater, and terrestrial species alike, the first response to changing climate is often a shift in location, to stay within preferred environmental conditions,” they wrote.

Of more than 4,000 species studied around the world, half are relocating, says National Geographic. In the Arctic, brown bears (Ursus arctos) are expanding their range northward, in some cases competing with and even mating with polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Beavers (Castor canadensis) have been found as far north as the coast of the Beaufort Sea. The list includes mammals, amphibians, fish and insects.

“Movement of mosquitoes in response to global warming is a threat to health in many countries through predicted increases in the number of known and potentially new diseases,” states an additional report titled “Biodiversity Redistribution Under Climate Change: Impacts on Ecosystems and Human Well-Being,” from an international team of 41 scientists, published March 31, 2017, in Science. The World Health Organization (WHO) counted 212 million new cases of malaria in 2015, primarily in Africa, Southeast Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. But climate change will allow the disease to spread to new areas, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Center for Science Education.

That will be a problem for health officials. “Climate-related transmission of malaria can result in epidemics due to lack of immunity among local residents and will challenge health systems at national and international scales, diverting public and private-sector resources from other uses,” state the authors of the UCAR report.

Other insect-borne diseases are on the rise due to climate change as well. Of the approximately 3,500 species of mosquito around the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), only a hand-full carry and transmit the dreaded West Nile virus, dengue fever and the lesser-known Chikungunya. West Nile claimed 146 lives in the U.S. in 2015 while an island-wide epidemic in Puerto Rico in 2007 tallied 10,000 cases. Black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), which carry Lyme disease as well as other deadly pathogens, have spread to 41 states as the blood-sucking bugs enjoy warmer, shorter winters.

“The natural world is very complex,” said the University of Florida’s Stephen Mayor. “When you kick it with a big change by altering the climate, different parts of that natural world respond in different ways. We’re just beginning to understand the consequences of this grand unnatural experiment.”

Atop Maine’s Bradbury Mountain, for the past 11 years, a lone volunteer spends his or her days from March 15 to May 15, scanning the skies for birds. It is often cold and windy into late April, sometimes requiring snowshoes to ascend the summit. From the rounded granite top of the mountain, the view extends outward to the ocean. It’s the site of the northernmost hawk watch in the Eastern Flyway – one of the major north-south routes for migratory birds in North America. Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and broad-winged hawks (Buteo platypterus) can be seen and counted, soaring above the tall white pines and iconic sugar maple trees.

“It has not escaped our attention that they are recording increasing numbers of raptors while the more southern hawk watches are showing an opposite trend,” stated the 2016 spring Eastern Flyway Report, published by the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA). “This coupled with the dramatic decrease in more northern migrants such as the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), which are at 32 percent of historical values for the Eastern Flyway this year, leads us to consider if climate change is a potential factor.”

On a positive note, citizen science is increasingly coupling with academics, scientists and government researchers from around the world to document the disruption to wildlife wrought by human-caused destabilization of the climate. These volunteers help to create a more scientifically complete picture of what is happening in the natural world. “It’s like ‘Silent Spring,’ but with a more elusive culprit,” added Mayor. “These are birds people are used to seeing and hearing in their backyards. They’re part of the American landscape, part of our psyche. To imagine a future where they’re much less common would be a real loss.”

Oldspeak: “The good news is that it is still possible to meet the Paris temperature goals if emissions begin to fall by 2020” –Christiana Figuereset Al.

Sigh. How long are we gonna extend and pretend that humans can still “safeguard our climate”? Consider this optimistic hopium fueled poppycock in the context of these brutal truths- Last month, it was reported that NONE of the countries who signed the paris climate agreement are taking the actions necessary to meet the commitments they made. Less than 3 years ago it was reported that “The climate justice movement has an expiration date. If the tipping points in the earth system are passed, and the feedback loops begin their vicious cycle, human attempts at mitigation will be futile, and climate justice will become an anachronism – or at worst a slogan for geo-engineering lobbies. Thousands of scientists have come to consensus on this point, and many years ago gave us a deadline: A carbon emissions peak in 2015 followed by rapid and permanent decline.” A year ago, it was reported that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and peaked at +1.38C in February and March. So I am really puzzled as to why articles like that continue to be published. “Action” at this point is futile. Why are people continuing to pretend like humans can safeguard anything? Pretending like we still have the resources necessary to make this grand transition to a “green energy” fuel future. We don’t. We need to stop pretending. It’s obvious that fake news doesn’t only come from right-wingnuts. -OSJ

Decarbonizing the world economy will require renewable energy generation from vast solar farms, such as this one in Nevada.

In the past three years, global emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have levelled after rising for decades. This is a sign that policies and investments in climate mitigation are starting to pay off. The United States, China and other nations are replacing coal with natural gas and boosting renewable energy sources. There is almost unanimous international agreement that the risks of abandoning the planet to climate change are too great to ignore.

The technology-driven transition to low-carbon energy is well under way, a trend that made the 2015 Paris climate agreement possible. But there is still a long way to go to decarbonize the world economy. The political winds are blustery. President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement when it is legally able to do so, in November 2020.

The year 2020 is crucially important for another reason, one that has more to do with physics than politics. When it comes to climate, timing is everything. According to an April report1 (prepared by Carbon Tracker in London, the Climate Action Tracker consortium, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut), should emissions continue to rise beyond 2020, or even remain level, the temperature goals set in Paris become almost unattainable. The UN Sustainable Development Goals that were agreed in 2015 would also be at grave risk.

As 20 leaders of the world’s largest economies gather on 7–8 July at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, we call on them to highlight the importance of the 2020 climate turning point for greenhouse-gas emissions, and to demonstrate what they and others are doing to meet this challenge. Lowering emissions globally is a monumental task, but research tells us that it is necessary, desirable and achievable.

After roughly 1°C of global warming driven by human activity, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are already losing mass at an increasing rate. Summer sea ice is disappearing in the Arctic and coral reefs are dying from heat stress — entire ecosystems are starting to collapse. The social impacts of climate change from intensified heatwaves, droughts and sea-level rise are inexorable and affect the poorest and weakest first.

The magnitude of the challenge can be grasped by computing a budget for CO2 emissions — the maximum amount of the gas that can be released before the temperature limit is breached. After subtracting past emissions, humanity is left with a ‘carbon credit’ of between 150 and 1,050 gigatonnes (Gt; one Gt is 1 × 109 tonnes) of CO2 to meet the Paris target of 1.5 °C or well below 2 °C (see http://go.nature.com/2rytztf). The wide range reflects different ways of calculating the budgets using the most recent figures.

At the current emission rate of 41 Gt of CO2 per year, the lower limit of this range would be crossed in 4 years, and the midpoint of 600 Gt of CO2 would be passed in 15 years. If the current rate of annual emissions stays at this level, we would have to drop them almost immediately to zero once we exhaust the budget. Such a ‘jump to distress’ is in no one’s interest. A more gradual descent would allow the global economy time to adapt smoothly.

Harness momentum

The good news is that it is still possible to meet the Paris temperature goals if emissions begin to fall by 2020 (see ‘Carbon crunch’).

Greenhouse-gas emissions are already decoupling from production and consumption. For the past three years, worldwide CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have stayed flat, while the global economy and the gross domestic product (GDP) of major developed and developing nations have grown by at least 3.1% per year (see http://go.nature.com/2rthjje). This is only the fourth occasion in the past 40 years on which emission levels have stagnated or fallen. The previous three instances — in the early 1980s, 1992 and 2009 — were associated with global economic predicaments, but the current one is not2.

Emissions from the United States fell the most: by 3% last year, while its GDP grew by 1.6%. In China, CO2 emissions fell by 1% in 2016, and its economy expanded by 6.7% (ref. 2). Although it is too early to tell whether this plateau will presage a fall, the signs are encouraging.

In 2016, two-thirds of China’s 5.4% extra demand for electricity was supplied by carbon-free energy resources, mostly hydropower and wind2. In the European Union, wind and solar made up more than three-quarters of new energy capacity installed; coal demand was reduced by 10% (ref. 3). In the United States, almost two-thirds of the electricity-generating capacity installed by utility companies was based on renewables (see http://go.nature.com/2skv20g).

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that, by 2020, renewable sources could deliver 26–27% of the world’s electricity needs, compared with 23.7% of electric power at the end of 2015. But that underestimates the pace of change in energy systems.

Growth in electric vehicles alone could displace 2 million barrels of oil per day by 2025, according to a February report4. It suggests that, by 2050, this could reach 25 million barrels of oil per day — a stark contrast to expectations from the fossil-fuel industry that demand for oil will rise. And solar power alone could supply 29% of global electricity generation by 2050. This would remove the need for coal and leave natural gas with only a 1% market share. However, the oil firm ExxonMobil predicts that all renewables will supply just 11% of global power generation by 2040 (ref. 4).

Investors, meanwhile, are growing wary of carbon risks. BlackRock and Vanguard, the two largest fund managers, voted — along with many others — against ExxonMobil management at its annual general meeting on 31 May and instructed the company to report on the profit impact of global measures to keep climate change below 2 °C. Earlier this month, Norway’s US$960-billion sovereign-wealth fund declared that it will ask the banks in which it has invested to disclose how their lending contributes to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Last year, the installed capacity of renewable energy set a new record of 161 gigawatts; in 2015, investment levels reached $286 billion worldwide, more than 6 times that in 2004. Over half of that investment, $156 billion, was for projects in developing and emerging economies5.

There is a strong headwind against the low-carbon transition in some places, which may impede progress. For example, the Financial CHOICE Act — a bill passed by the US House of Representatives on 8 June — would make it nearly impossible for investors to challenge companies on climate-risk disclosure through shareholder proposal processes, as at ExxonMobil. However, as the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said in New York last month: “The sustainability train has left the station.” The fossil-free economy is already profitable6 and creating jobs (www.clean200.org). A report this year by the International Renewable Energy Agency and the IEA shows that efforts to stop climate change could boost the global economy by $19 trillion7. The IEA has also said that implementing the Paris agreement will unlock $13.5 trillion or more before 2050.

Recent geopolitical events, too, have galvanized activity in support of the Paris agreement. For example, the #WeAreStillIn campaign — involving more than 1,000 governors, mayors, businesses, investors and universities from across the United States — has declared that it will ensure the nation remains a leader in reducing carbon emissions.

Six milestones

To prioritize actions, we’ve identified milestones in six sectors. Developed with knowledge leaders, these were reviewed and refined in collaboration with analysts at Yale University, the Climate Action Tracker consortium, Carbon Tracker, the low-carbon coalition We Mean Business, the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), advisory firm SYSTEMIQ, the New Climate Economy project and Conservation International.

These goals may be idealistic at best, unrealistic at worst. However, we are in the age of exponential transformation and think that such a focus will unleash ingenuity. By 2020, here’s where the world needs to be:

Energy. Renewables make up at least 30% of the world’s electricity supply — up from 23.7% in 2015 (ref. 8). No coal-fired power plants are approved beyond 2020, and all existing ones are being retired.

Infrastructure. Cities and states have initiated action plans to fully decarbonize buildings and infrastructures by 2050, with funding of $300 billion annually. Cities are upgrading at least 3% of their building stock to zero- or near-zero emissions structures each year9.

Transport. Electric vehicles make up at least 15% of new car sales globally, a major increase from the almost 1% market share that battery-powered and plug-in hybrid vehicles now claim. Also required are commitments for a doubling of mass-transit utilization in cities, a 20% increase in fuel efficiencies for heavy-duty vehicles and a 20% decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation per kilometre travelled.

Land. Land-use policies are enacted that reduce forest destruction and shift to reforestation and afforestation efforts. Current net emissions from deforestation and land-use changes form about 12% of the global total. If these can be cut to zero next decade, and afforestation and reforestation can instead be used to create a carbon sink by 2030, it will help to push total net global emissions to zero, while supporting water supplies and other benefits. Sustainable agricultural practices can reduce emissions and increase CO2 sequestration in healthy, well-managed soils.

Industry. Heavy industry is developing and publishing plans for increasing efficiencies and cutting emissions, with a goal of halving emissions well before 2050. Carbon-intensive industries — such as iron and steel, cement, chemicals, and oil and gas — currently emit more than one-fifth of the world’s CO2, excluding their electricity and heat demands.

Finance. The financial sector has rethought how it deploys capital and is mobilizing at least $1 trillion a year for climate action. Most will come from the private sector. Governments, private banks and lenders such as the World Bank need to issue many more ‘green bonds’ to finance climate-mitigation efforts. This would create an annual market that, by 2020, processes more than 10 times the $81 billion of bonds issued in 2016.

Further, faster, together

If we delay, the conditions for human prosperity will be severely curtailed. There are three pressing and practical steps to avoid this.

First, use science to guide decisions and set targets. Policies and actions must be based on robust evidence. Uncensored and transparent communication of peer-reviewed science to global decision-makers is crucial. Academic journal articles are not easily read or digested by non-experts, so we need a new kind of communication in which Nature meets Harvard Business Review. Science associations should provide more media training to young scientists and hold communication boot camps on how to make climate science relevant to corporate boards and investors.

Those in power must also stand up for science. French President Emmanuel Macron’s Make Our Planet Great Again campaign is a compelling example. He has spoken out to a global audience in support of climate scientists, and invited researchers to move to France to help accelerate action and deliver on the Paris agreement. To encourage others to speak, scientists should forge connections with leaders from policy, business and civil society. The Arctic Basecamp at Davos in January, for instance, brought scientists into high-level discussions on global risk at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland.

“The fossil-free economy is already profitable.”

Second, existing solutions must be scaled up rapidly. With no time to wait, all countries should adopt plans for achieving 100% renewable electricity production, while ensuring that markets can be designed to enable renewable-energy expansion.

Third, encourage optimism. Recent political events have thrown the future of our world into sharp focus. But as before Paris, we must remember that impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude. It is crucial that success stories are shared. Demonstrating where countries and businesses have over-achieved on their targets will raise the bar for others. More-ambitious targets become easier to set.

The upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg is the perfect moment for heads of state to integrate the six milestones into their discussions on how to ensure a resilient, prosperous, inclusive and interconnected global economy. This would pave the way for a year of raised ambition in 2018, when nations take stock of progress and revise national commitments under the Paris agreement.

The G20 is due to adopt the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, on how the global finance system will manage the risk of climate change. It requires financial institutions to design, disclose and implement a transition strategy with a view to full decarbonization of operations, value chains and portfolios by 2050. National governments and financial regulators must enact these recommendations swiftly.

Cities and provincial governments must help to drive the ambition of national governments on climate change, particularly through smart infrastructure and transport policy. C40 Cities, a network of megacities committed to addressing climate change, has adopted a strategy called Deadline 2020 that aligns its emissions-reductions plans with the Paris agreement. Other cities now have an opportunity to follow suit, for example through the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.

Our co-signatory list, which includes eminent scientists, business leaders, economists, analysts, influencers and representatives of non-governmental organizations, is an example of the strength of radical collaboration across unusual partners, who all share a mission to seize this opportunity to improve people’s lives, the planet and the global economy.

There will always be those who hide their heads in the sand and ignore the global risks of climate change. But there are many more of us committed to overcoming this inertia. Let us stay optimistic and act boldly together.

Right, let’s get a couple of things straight from the outset. Firstly, this is not merely a dark trawl through the origins of goth and beyond, it all constitutes a rigorous examination of the fag-end of post-punk as it morphed into something more introspective and experimental. Secondly, this is no lazy ‘Best Of’ compilation. Sure, all our favourites raise their back-combed heads at some point but over the course of 5 CDs, 83 tracks and around six hours of collective bleak angst you are left with the sense that Britain was a pretty miserable place to live in the late 70s/early 80s.

Speaking as someone who lived through this era, it remains a tough ask to put Silhouettes & Statues into a modern context. We had a female Prime minister hell-bent on destroying the fabric of society, civil unrest in cities across the UK and the omnipresent threat of global conflict…hmm, perhaps now *is* the optimum time to dig up and reflect upon this most misunderstood of musical genres. But where do you start to review 83 tracks?

The answer is, you don’t even try. Allow me to do a swift roll call of the big hitters contained on this majestic release for whom I won’t even attempt to discuss in further detail; Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, The Mission, PIL The Cure and Fields of the Nephilim. However, the album cleverly circumnavigates the well-known hits and opts to place an emphasis on early or little-known tracks instead. Take All About Eve by way of example, a band often derided in goth circles for being far too twee and folky. ‘D For Desire’, their debut single. is totally off-kilter when compared to their later output and made me wish they had never signed to a major label.

The same can also be said of Adam And The Ants ‘Tabletalk‘ and ‘Q Quarters‘ by The Associates. No, the real sensory joy of Silhouettes & Statues is the love, care and attention which has clearly been poured into collating such a unique, exhaustive narrative of the era and must surely become the de facto starting point for all future generations wishing to investigate their goth heritage. Every track in the collection was recorded in the days when the internet was simply somewhere a Yorkshire fisherman put his catch, there has been no gravestone left unturned in the pursuit of creating a definitive musical mausoleum.

Far from being a depressing sub-culture, this collection demonstrates just how creative and experimental this period in our musical history was to become. ‘Fiends‘ by Portion Control could easily have provided a blueprint for much of what was to follow from Aphex Twin and ‘Among The Ruins‘ from Bushido is surely an embryonic seed for what was to later become OK Computer. Naturally, there is the occasional therapeutic descent into hell, don’t listen to Clock DVA with the lighyts off, ‘Female Mirror‘ makes The Cure sound as upbeat as The Beach Boys. Elsewhere, there is plenty of invective to enjoy with both Brigandage and Anorexic Dread rounding up the post-punk embers and laying them to rest. Oh, and if you still don’t believe this is relevant for 2017 then one listen to ‘Carnival of the Gullible‘ by In Excelsis will have you manning the barricades.

The only missing element is humour, it’s virtually devoid of the stuff, aside from S-Haters chanting “you’ve got to reach out for the forceps and stab it” which is hilariously ghoulish. The band names are, however, brilliant fun and if ever there was a Top Trumps of goth band names then Bone Orchard would win for me every time!

What really makes Silhouettes & Statues an essential purchase is the artefact itself. All 5 CDs are set in a beautifully bound book which contains a biography of all 83 acts and an overview of the genre penned by Natasha Sharf. The real hero, however, appears to be Richard Anderson who has painstakingly put this together and ought to be awarded the freedom of Whitby for his troubles. This is a truly magnificent and intelligently compiled collection of tracks which will have you harking back to the days of Dallas and Royal Weddings, a word of warning though, please don’t listen to all six hours at once. I did…and I now have a tattoo of Danielle Dax. You have been warned.

Alongside all the other releases this month, Planet Shockorama is the musical equivalent of Lord Buckethead standing next to Theresa May on the stage at the General Election. Gloriously ridiculous, Vince Ripper And The Rodent Show (Ratfink of Alien Sex Fiend and Vince Ripper) pull together a number of tracks, including covers from the likes of David Bowie, Hawkwind and Alien Sex Fiend, to deliver much needed humour into our world.

The tracks are united by the theme of alien invasion, kind of War Of The Worlds meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The album opens with a radio transmission warning us of the threat, a little like Vincent Price at the start of ‘Thriller’. This opening cover of ‘Planet Claire’ by The B-52s, has plenty of twiddling organ that you would expect to find in tackier horror films. The threat has the feel of a comic Batman baddy about it, all thick make-up and outrageous costume, but you can’t help feeling on his side.

There are many punky tracks such as ‘Teenagers From Mars’ and ‘The Invasion Is Coming’ that you can only bounce up and down to, regardless of age. It’s uncomplicated pure entertainment. Likewise, Love‘s ‘7 + 7 Is’ lacks all subtlety. It has plenty of thrashing around and general noise that you’d expect to hear from The Damned, the type of track that offers proper end-of-the-working-day catharsis. ‘Outer Limits’ has the compulsory theremin. It sounds like something Iggy and Bowie would have produced if they’d ended up in Blackpool instead of Berlin.

Other notable covers on Planet Shockorama include ‘I Can’t Find My Mind’ by The Cramps. It has an Indian-inspired sitar at the beginning and ends with an onslaught of drums, vocal and sixties’ guitar as filling. Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’ has never sounded like this before. Strip out any dreamy psychedelia and replace with deliberate lack of melody. It’s like Lemmy’s just got up to do karaoke and no one dare ask him to stop. Alien Sex Fiend’s ‘EST –Trip To The Moon’ is especially successful. Differing from the other tracks in that it relies far more heavily on the lighter, atmospheric sounds of synth and guitars, it creates a stylised trip to the moon. At six minutes long, it’s one to really enjoy.

The album concludes with a cover of Bowie’s ‘Scary Monsters’ which translates extraordinarily well, the type of thing where you start by raising your eyebrows and then can’t help joining in.
This is definitely an album that you put on in loud company and don’t bother to change – you can dance from one end of it to the other. Party season has come early, admittedly one where you find yourself dancing with Beetlejuice.

Apparently that’s what Little Mammoths, ex- Noah And The Whale bassist Matt Owens’ new band have been called; apparently they’ve been known to play 8 hour long sets in the past! But does that perspiration and hard gigging, on its own, make their music automatically worthwhile? Do all of those shows make their second album ‘Cargo For the Road’ (perhaps the most roadie title for an album I have ever seen) any good? Let’s find out together!

‘I wanna shoot the shit with Steve’ sings frontman Matt on opener ‘Get Me Back to Austin’, which is one of the best things here, possessing a pleasant toe-tapping brass-laced piano strut. This good-time song is like much of this long player – an honest love letter to the music of the south from a British band. Its galloping toe tapping percussion sounds like The Replacements without the edge and despite the country buzz words; it’s a fair beginning.

Lead single ‘Hungover in New York’ fares less well though, an overly worn, hackneyed bar room ballad, redolent of the strumming MOR of Del Amitri meeting the cheesy lyrics and Yank tinged emoting of Bon Jovi. It’s like rocking back and forth next to a roaring fire sipping a bourbon and coke whilst falling into a stupor of boredom. The syrupy ballads and predictable mid-paced rockers are the worst offenders here, lyrically cliché ridden (references to ‘riding‘ ,’drinking‘ and ‘playing‘ scattered throughout) and generic. They are laced with a kind of inauthenticity that suggests they are in awe of a genre rather than excelling at it. So you have the mawkish Dylan-esque without the bollocks on ‘She Came in From the Storm’, the country by numbers ‘Komono‘ and the saccharine ‘His Last Ride’, which all follow a similar trot on a horse to nowhere. ‘First Light’ is a bit better in the dynamic stakes; this earnest bar room ode to a life on the road, with its pattering drums and spindling slide guitars supplied by pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte, gradually builds to a crescendo something approximating the commercial 80s work of Bruce Springsteen.

Everything about Little Mammoths screams: “WE ARE MUSICIANS! WE ARE COUNTRY FANS!“. From the sepia-tinged artwork featuring an acoustic guitar to the corny lyrics and predictable homage to the classic Americana sound they make. If you like easy, good time country and passionate Americana, maybe you’ll dig some of this record, but they lack the lyrical energy of their influences The Hold Steady or the subtetly of Wilco. But ‘Cargo for the Road’ stinks of real music, leather jackets and cowboy boots and country cliches. There are a few reasonable efforts here and maybe they’re a good live band – the eight hour non stop gigs at least show they have stamina – but that’s more of a Guinness Book Of Records winning achievement than something worthy of trumpeting as artistic merit isn’t it?

On record they sound largely tedious, obvious and possess very little to hook you in or surprise you. Indeed as soon as you read ‘good time country rock‘ you can predict every note and chord before you’ve heard it. Maybe you want a trip into this familiar sound but the biggest indictment is that after most of the songs are over you simply don’t remember them. We are told that dreary Glastonbury headliner Ed Sheeran is more worthy than other pop stars merely because he can play an instrument and writes some of his songs, but is worthiness enough to excite and interest on its own? I think, in the case of Little Mammoths, it isn’t.

The National have announced details of their seventh studio album ‘Sleep Well Beast’ released through 4AD on September 8, 2017.

‘Sleep Well Beast’ was produced by member Aaron Dessner with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger. The album was mixed by Peter Katis and recorded at Aaron Dessner’s Hudson Valley, New York studio, Long Pond, with additional sessions having taken place in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles.

Sleep Well Beast is available for pre-order at americanmary.com and will be available in CD, digital and double LP formats.

The National debuted the track ‘The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness’, in this Casey Reas directed video

The band has also announced a World Tour in support of the album, kicking off in

Cork, Ireland on September 16th. Highlights include multiple night residencies in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester and London. The National will also play Haven Festival in Copenhagen this summer. For additional information visit http://ift.tt/TPUokZ

Originally from Birmingham, LayFullStop is now a well-established rising Manchester-based artist. She recently dropped a new single called ‘Case-Closed’, which sees her rapping and singing over a soulful and infectious beat. Her songs often feel like a breath of fresh air as she continues to prove herself as a versatile and sincere artist. After gaining much attention from YouTube videos, she has rightfully earned a cult following. She is also involved with the music collective/label Roots Raddix and is a member of the esteemed Cul De Sac.

Her seamless flow, soothing voice and overall feel-good vibe will make it hard for the music world to ignore her. As her popularity constantly surges, the young artist is surely destined for great things. She is headlining a free night at Manchester’s superb venue Band On The Wall on 21st July (details here), playing alongside some of the city’s freshest talent including Abnormal Sleepz and KinKai.